Well hello there! Its been a while and hope everyone is well, just a quick update as quite frankly we have been doing a whole lot of nothing (sorry but it's true!). However as always even when you're doing a whole lot of nothing things still happen so here's some info to bring you up to date.........

So, we were last in Koh Lanta which was fantastic (Anton can totally understand why you went sailing in Thailand can't understand why you didnt stay!!) - we did some more dog walking and also had the horrible experience of having to evacuate to high ground on the tsunami warning - we'd been out all day on a snorkelling trip and just got back into our hostel when the owner came in and said that there had been an earthquake off of sumatra with potential tsunami warning - i was just logging onto web to take a look and the tsunami siren went off, me and Mark looked at each other with a what should we do expression - and then the siren went off again and everyone was on the move, our hostel owner was great and gave us keys to a moped and sent us off to higher ground. It was quite frankly just horrible - no information, everyone moving somewhere but you could see the fear on some of the locals faces - on the other hand though some locals were just sitting there watching the tv so we didn't really know what to do for the best - we headed for higher ground and to cut a long storey short spent several hours at the top of a hill not really knowing what was going on - luckily nothing came of it and everyone could return home safely but it made you think of the previous time when they didn't have sirens or warnings - very sombre.

So after those events we setteled back into Koh Lanta life of ease and decided that we just weren't spoiling ourselves enough so for our last few days there moved to a resort with swimming pool etc right by the beach which was frankly - paradise........ we left a few days later just as the monsoon season was starting - sunny for an hour in the morning then the blackest clouds would appear for a downpour then move off leaving some sunshine ...... and so the process goes for the next 6 months. We left and headed to Khoa Sok National Park, we had booked into a wooden hut at Mama Noi's and from the moment we arrived we were so well looked after by the family and also local wildlife/bugs that saw fit to visit us in wooden hut! The National Park was lovely, very hot and humid as you would expect for a rainforest, it was lovely to wake up in the morning and hear the baboons chattering away in the forrest - coming across the scopians in the middle of the road when walking home at night was not so desirable but Mark loved it, getting right in close to have a look at them whilst i'm jittering away about not getting to close - eugh! We went for a big wander into the rainforest - didn't see to much other than lovely forrest - everything hid itself well - Mark made a game up of see if we can scare Zoe by making her jump and exclaiming 'crikey what's that' - on the 4th time my reaction was more 'yeah ok stop making me jump' however on the 4th occasion i had actually just walked centremeters away from a HUGE lizard thing and Mark had stopped just before it and couldn't get his camera out quick enough to get a picture - i hadn't noticed the lizard at all as i strolled past (it was doing a very good impression of a piece of wood!) but when i stopped and turned round to actually see i'm glad i hadn't seen it as walking past - once the lizard realised that its i'm a piece of wood disguise had been busted he was off into the jungle not to be seen again. We only stayed at Koh Sok for 3 nights instead of 4 as it was out of season and not to much going on plus the caves were flooded already from the start of monsoon - much better to go in season i think.

So after Koh Sok we moved onto Koh Samui (another sunny island across the other side of Thailand where the monsoon hasn't yet started) - unfortunately on our trip there our backpaks were rifiled though and stupidly we had left a couple of items we'd prefer not to lose in there which were taken - however lucky for us we realised when we were on the ferry across to Koh Samui and the culprits were still downstairs with the bus and nowhere to go - so after looking at Mark and agreeing i was less likely to hang them upside down and try to shake it out of them - I went downstairs and confronted them - now i'm not quite sure how (we think that maybe they were novices) but i managed through lots of talking (and the fact we were in the middle of the sea and i wasn't going away) to get our stuff back - bit by bit - but lesson learnt do not leave anything that you'd like to keep (they don't tend to take smelly clothes, shoes or toilettries) in your backpak when travelling by bus or anywhere that your bag is out of sight. Unfortunately after that we arrived in Koh Samui with a bit of a bad taste about it - but that was soon forgotten when some lovely locals helped us out with a lift on their moped - don't try this at home but 3 people, 2 rucksaks and 2 bags can all fit on a moped at once! So we safely!!! arrived at our accomodation in Koh Samui once again to be luckily spoilt with great hosts and digs - room is huge, we have a pool and the food is yum - we really don't leave that often! We have been out on the moped though to a couple of places but it has been sooooooooooooooo hot the other day it was 35 in the shade and 42 in the sun - swift movement is not possible! We expect to be here a couple more weeks before heading back towards Bangkok and Kanchanabri. Strangely all this doing nothing is driving me a lil loopy so me and another girl staying here for a while started a lil running regime today - Mark however takes to doing not to much quite well - but we do get a swim in most days which suffices!

So hope everyone is well and summer is creeping into the homeland - keep us posted, chat soon - as always Mark has taken some fantastic pics which will follow shortly - Zoe & Mark x